Word study

Passion

1 Hebrew and 7 Greek words behind this English word

The original-language words that the Berean Standard Bible translates with one of these: passions, passion. English often uses one word where Hebrew or Greek has several, each with its own shade of meaning. Under each word are verses where it is translated this way; choose the word itself for its full study: every verse, how else it is translated, the forms it takes and what the dictionaries say.

At a glance

How often each original word is translated “passion” or one of its forms.

Compare the Greek words side by side

Hebrew and Aramaic words (Old Testament)

Greek words (New Testament)

  • ἐπιθυμία epithymíadesire, eagerness for, inordinate desire, lusttranslated this way 6 times of its 37 uses · Strong’s G1939Noun  ·  Translated: desires 17, passions 6, desire 5, evil desires 3

    2 Timothy 2:22 Flee from youthful passions and pursue righteousness, faith, love, and peace, together with those who call on the Lord out of a pure heart.

    Titus 2:12 It instructs us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live sensible, upright, and godly lives in the present age,

    Full study and all 36 verses →
  • πάθος páthossuffering, emotion, depraved passion, lusttranslated this way 2 times of its 3 uses · Strong’s G3806Noun  ·  Translated: passions 1, lust 1, passion 1

    Romans 1:26 For this reason God gave them over to dishonorable passions. Even their women exchanged natural relations for unnatural ones.

    1 Thessalonians 4:5 not in lustful passion like the Gentiles who do not know God;

    Full study and all 3 verses →
  • θυμός thymósan outburst of passion, wrathtranslated this way 2 times of its 17 uses · Strong’s G2372Noun  ·  Translated: rage 4, wrath 4, anger 3, fury 3

    Revelation 14:8 Then a second angel followed, saying, “Fallen, fallen is Babylon the great, who has made all the nations drink the wine of the passion of her immorality.”

    Revelation 18:3 All the nations have drunk the wine of the passion of her immorality. The kings of the earth were immoral with her, and the merchants of the earth have grown wealthy from the extravagance of her luxury.”

    Full study and all 17 verses →
  • πάθημα páthēmasuffering, passiontranslated this way 2 times of its 16 uses · Strong’s G3804Noun  ·  Translated: sufferings 10, passions 2, suffering 2, suffered 1

    Romans 7:5 For when we lived according to the flesh, the sinful passions aroused by the law were at work in our bodies, bearing fruit for death.

    Galatians 5:24 Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.

    Full study and all 16 verses →
  • πυρόω pyróōI burn, am purified by firetranslated this way 1 time of its 6 uses · Strong’s G4448Verb  ·  Translated: refined 2, burn with passion 1, burn with grief 1, flaming 1

    1 Corinthians 7:9 But if they cannot control themselves, let them marry. For it is better to marry than to burn with passion.

    Full study and all 6 verses →
  • καταστρηνιάω katastrēniáōI grow wanton towardstranslated this way 1 time of its 1 use · Strong’s G2691Verb  ·  Translated: passions draw them away 1

    1 Timothy 5:11 But refuse to enroll younger widows. For when their passions draw them away from Christ, they will want to marry,

    Full study and its 1 verse →
  • ἡδονή hēdonḗpleasure, lust, strong desiretranslated this way 1 time of its 5 uses · Strong’s G2237Noun  ·  Translated: pleasures 3, passions 1, pleasure 1

    James 4:1 What causes conflicts and quarrels among you? Don’t they come from the passions at war within you?

    Full study and all 5 verses →
How to study a word well
  1. Start from the verse, not the dictionary. Find which Hebrew or Greek word stands in the verse you are studying. One English word often translates several different original words.
  2. Read every place the word is used. A word means what its writers used it to mean. The list of verses and the count by book show its range, and who uses it most.
  3. Look at how it is translated. A word rendered five different ways has a wider meaning than any one English word can carry.
  4. Notice the form. A command is not a statement, and a passive verb is something done to the subject. The form in your verse is part of the meaning.
  5. See what it keeps company with. The words that appear beside it again and again show how the Bible itself connects ideas.
  6. Then read the dictionaries. They give the considered view of scholars, with their evidence.
  7. Come back to the verse. Context decides. A word does not carry every one of its meanings into every verse, and where a word came from does not settle what it means in a sentence written centuries later.

What the Bible says about passion: passages by topic →

Scripture text and translation counts: Berean Standard Bible. Full entry: Brown, Driver and Briggs, A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament (1906, public domain), in the digital edition Brown-Driver-Briggs Enhanced by unfoldingWord (Joel Ruark, J. de Joode), based on data by Eliran Wong and Stephen Ku; its additions are used under CC BY 4.0. Strong’s Hebrew Dictionary: Open Scriptures Hebrew Bible Project, CC BY 4.0. Hebrew-to-English verse numbering: original work of the Open Scriptures Hebrew Bible available at https://github.com/openscriptures/morphhb, CC BY 4.0. We reformatted the data, linked the references to this site’s Bible text and left out words in other scripts that the source holds only as images. These are historical reference works; an entry gives its authors’ view, and a word’s meaning in any verse depends on how it is used there.